


Second Verse, Different from the First

by Ahmerst



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation, some sad stuff man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:51:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/pseuds/Ahmerst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-canon continuation of Clear’s good end dealing with the inevitable outliving of everyone, but with a more-than-silver lining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Verse, Different from the First

Mizuki was the first to go

Vegetative state, the doctors told them. 

It was not as peaceful as Clear imaged it would be. He thought it would be like what he’d seen on television and in movies. A quiet scene with a person who looked to be doing nothing more than sleeping. He wasn’t prepared for what the doctors called ‘involuntary movements.’ Wasn’t prepared for the way Mizuki would open his eyes, moving but unfocused, or yawn around the ventilation tube that ran down his throat.

It was nearly bearable.

But when Mizuki shook his head from discomfort, when his eyes would leak tears from their corners, that was too much. No assurance that the movements were purposeless and automatic made it better.

It went on for a year before a decision was made. This wasn’t killing only Mizuki now, but those that loved him. 

The room had too many people in it when the time came. Aoba and Tae at one side of the bed, Koujaku at the other. They each reached forward to touch what they could. The back of Mizuki’s wrist, a handful of hospital gown. Around them were the remnants of Dry Juice and members of Beni Shigure. 

It was as much a family as they could have ever given Mizuki.

\---

Noiz went next, and none of them saw it coming. An untreated puncture from a rusty nail. He never showed a sign that it was bothering him, waving Clear and Aoba off when they first noticed it.

“It'll be fine," Noiz had said. “This sort of thing happens all the time."

Not exactly famous last words, but fitting. Death was the sort of thing that happened all the time.  
\---

Just because they knew Tae’s death was coming didn’t make it any easier.

Clear hoped it would be quiet and with dignity. It was what she deserved. But the world was unfair in every way it could be, and as he heard Aoba’s cry one morning while on the cusp of stepping into the shower, Clear couldn’t make it down the stairs fast enough.

There was a burning sort of smell. The donuts, he later realized, left frying too long.

He fell to his knees in an instant when he saw Tae on the floor, Aoba at her side. He touched her and knew she was gone. He registered it without thinking. It indexed itself in his mind, the coolness of her skin, the empty silence where her pulse should have been.

\---

Koujaku’s was a slow burn, and that somehow made it all the worse. 

It showed up in small ways at first. The curl of his fist, the way he raised his voice. Small things set him off. Then everything set him off.

He radiated anger. There was an air about him, frenzied and impossible to tame. A beast locked in a too-small cage. He started disappearing, gone from the streets where he once cut hair. He was looking for someone, he said. Someone he’d met on the mainland. The words were short and clipped when he told them, the tone that said he didn’t have the patience to explain beyond that.

He never had the patience for anything now. Not beyond his search.

They received the news about Kouajku not by coil, but by headline. Murderous rampage in Platinum Jail club, several dead, including the attacker.

Koujaku had no family as it turned out, so Aoba and Clear went to identify the body. Aoba’s tears overwhelmed him at the sight of it, a sob bordering on relief ripping from his throat.

“That’s not him,” he cried. 

His voice had an emotion in it that wasn’t in Clear’s database. He felt it in his teeth.

Clear agreed, it wasn’t Koujaku. But it was. There was red to his hair and his teeth were all wrong in a sharp and animalistic way, and yet it was him. Still the same scars in the same places, the same tattoos though they seemed more expansive now. He had become something more than a man, his anger at last manifesting beyond his mind. 

The body went unclaimed, and when weeks passed with no sign of Kouajku, Aoba said he must have gone back to the mainland. Clear smiled and nodded. Of course, of course. He’d be back soon. 

“He left before,” Aoba said, rubbing at his eyes like he did when he tried to act like it was allergies instead of tears. “who’s to say he hasn’t done it again?”

\---

Mink came up in conversation once, and only once.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Aoba said, staring out the window. Snow was falling outside, so soft and barely there it melted once it landed.

“Who?” Clear asked. He turned the thermostat higher as he watched the tremor in Aoba’s hand as he touched his fingertips to the windowpane. 

“Mink.”

“He must be,” Clear said, coming up to wrap his arms around Aoba from behind.

Aoba was slight now; frail. His heart beat slower, and the cold made his joints ache.

\---

There was no one to help Clear when the time came. Ren was too small, able only to walk beside Clear as he carried the bed sheet that served as a shroud to the top of the hill. He dug carefully, mechanically. Ren sat by the body and watched. Neither of them spoke, even when it got dark.

Clear wiped his hands on his tattered old coat when he was done before gently scooping Aoba up. The leap he took into the grave shook dirt from the walls, though not much. Clear laid him down as carefully as he would a newborn, his hand cupping Aoba’s cheek through the sheet. More dirt shook loose as Ren jumped down to join them.

When Clear went to scoop Ren up, Ren backed away, gaze serious and dark.

“I appreciate all that you have done not only for me, but for Aoba. All I can ask now is that you allow me this one last indulgence.”

Clear swallowed around the awful knot that kept him from speaking, instead nodding before he pulled himself from the grave. When he looked back into it, he found Ren circling the spot by his master’s feet as he had for so many years, a small dark bundle of fur as he curled up, eyes dim before they had even fully closed.

\---

Aoba had told Clear many times to live, and when Clear said he would, he meant it. At least at the time. Now he came to find that if everyone else could stop, could rest and not wake, that he should be able to as well. he carefully removed his coat and scarf, hanging them by the door before he stripped off his shoes and socks.

He lay in bed. Not on his side for once, but in the indent Aoba’s body had made after decades. It still smelled like him, light and sweet and loving. Clear breathed it in deeply one last time as he looked up at the glittering knick knacks that adorned the room. He felt everything slow and ease, his systems suspending, his eyelids closing with no intention of opening again.

But they did.

**Author's Note:**

> You may be asking yourself why this is tagged with 'angst with a happy ending.' Well, that's because it has one. However, the happy ending is at the bottom of[ this tumblr post](http://ahmerst.tumblr.com/post/107548832090/dmmd-fic-second-verse-different-from-the-first). Since it's more or less fleshed out notes, I don't think it's able to be posted here. If only there was a special way to post things kind of like how Deviant Art has 'scraps.'
> 
> (Scrap joke goes here.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
